These idiots may devastate our schools

Saturday

May 18, 2013 at 4:30 AM

Bruce BensonTimes-News Columnist

We moved to Hendersonville five years ago with three school-age children. Two enrolled in Hendersonville Middle School and the oldest in Hendersonville High. Our experiences with the schools, teachers and administrators have been fabulous. The teachers are professional, intelligent, informative and caring.From my experience, Henderson County should be very proud of the education it offers its young people.Personally, I feel a debt to these wonderful people who have spent so much time and effort in educating those I love most in this world, my children. I think all of us in this community should be proud and thankful.But the education system in North Carolina is under attack, and we, meaning you and I, dear reader, need to do something about it.Last Saturday, this paper ran an Associated Press article about proposals in the General Assembly that just might gut the school system in this state, a state that ranks 48th in the nation for both teacher salaries and per-student expenditures. How can anyone consider further cuts? Are they themselves so uneducated that they think the higher the number in ranking, the better the grade? Possibly.Let me digress for a moment: Years ago, the natural resource officers in Canada decided that fishermen needed to call and get permission from them to deliver fish to market the day after the fishing season ended. The assumption they made (and we know what it means to assume) was that if fishermen delivered fish the day after, they must have been fishing the day after and broken the law. Since the market closed at 6 p.m. and the season didn't end until midnight, it was clearly flawed logic.One fisherman called up to ask permission and was asked why he broke the law. Dumbfounded, the fisherman replied, "Stay right there, right where you are. I want to come down and see just what kind of an idiot you are.""Well, uh, ah, I'm not going to be here," he responded, demonstrating he was a big one.Now, what are we dealing with in Raleigh?The proposals call for changes to teachers' tenure, the elimination of 4,000 teacher assistants (TAs), limiting eligibility for kids to get into pre-kindergarten (I am not making this up) and the elimination of class-size restrictions in grades K-3. (Class-size restrictions in all other grades have been eliminated in the wave of cuts over the past four years.)I called Bobby Wilkins, principal of Henderson High, and he spoke on the issue of tenure. "It's a slap in the face to teachers," he said. "It's a morale kicker."Just what we need, a morale kicker to teachers who are already paid nearly the least in the country. I called Rodney Ellis, president of the N.C. Association of Educators, to ask him what he thought. "There's a misconception out there that tenure in schools is like tenure in college. It's not," he said. "It just ensures due process, making sure a teacher has a right to a hearing to protest an arbitrary or capricious dismissal. And it (an arbitrary or capricious dismissal) happens, whether for political reasons or a host of other reasons."Ellis went on: "It's going to be almost impossible to recruit the best and brightest to come or stay in North Carolina where they are underpaid, undervalued and don't have rights."Eliminate 4,000 TAs, making the teachers' jobs even harder, and I think we'll see a brain drain out of here. The best and the brightest will leave. Ellis told me many teachers are retiring early — they just can't take it any more. Others are switching careers long before retirement for greener pastures elsewhere.Matthew Johnson, principal of Atkinson Elementary, said if the proposal goes through, his school would lose half of its nine TA positions. "They are a huge asset to our school, especially for students who are struggling," he said. (Think No Child Left Behind.)Eliminating class-size restrictions for rambunctious, curious children with a short attention span, while at the same time killing TA jobs, seems like a two-pronged military exercise to destroy teachers. Think shock and awe, or AHHHHH! Restricting access to pre-kindergarten is pure Dickensian.Years ago, I took part in a political debate in Canada. The issues were gun control and longer prison terms for criminals. My opponent wanted the removal of gun controls and longer prison sentences, which would happily spur employment by the need for more prisons.I had an epiphany as I stood to speak. I don't know where it came from because, as you know, I'm not that smart. "Why aren't we talking about spending money on early childhood education, continuing through adolescence, so that we raise the type of person that, even if he had a gun, he would not use it on you?"The benefits of a good education reverberate through our society. For our own self-preservation, we should be insistent that the next generation, and the one after that, are made up of kind, well-informed people. They'll be running the world someday — and looking after us.We need to send a powerful message to the General Assembly that we value our teachers and hold them in the highest esteem — much higher than politicians.As for myself, to those making these asinine and dangerous proposals in Raleigh, I want to say, "Stay right there, right where you are. I want to come down and see just what kind ..."Bruce Benson is a Canadian writer and journalist who makes Hendersonville his home. Reach him at bensonusa@ hotmail.com.